one of the oppressed, degraded and wretched sons of Africa, rendered
so by the avaricious and unmerciful, among the whites.--If any wish to
plunge me into the wretched incapacity of a slave, or murder me for
the truth, know ye, that I am in the hand of God, and at your
disposal. I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to be
offered at any moment. For what is the use of living when in fact I am
dead. But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched, degraded
and abject as you have made us in preceding, and in this generation,
to support you and your families, that some of you (whites) on the
continent of America, will yet curse the day that you ever were born.
You want slaves, and want us for your slaves!!! My colour will yet,
root some of you out of the very face of the earth!!!!!! You may doubt
it if you please. I know that thousands will doubt--they think they
have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them and their children,
that it is impossible for such things to occur. So did the
antideluvians doubt Noah, until the day in which the flood came and
swept them away. So did the Sodomites doubt, until Lot had got out of
the City, and God rained down fire and brimstone from heaven, upon
them and burnt them up. So did the king of Egypt doubt the very
existence of a God, he said, "who is the Lord, that I should let
Israel go?" Did he not find to his sorrow, who the Lord was, when he
and all his mighty men of war, were smothered to death in the Red
Sea?--So did the Romans doubt, many of them were really so ignorant,
that they thought the world of mankind were made to be slaves to them;
just as many of the Americans think now, of my colour.--But they got
dreadfully deceived. When men got their eyes opened, they made the
murderers scamper. The way in which they cut their tyrannical throats,
was not much inferior to the way the Romans or murderers, served them,
when they held them in wretchedness and degradation under their feet.
So would Christian Americans doubt, if God should send an Angel from
heaven to preach their funeral sermon. The fact is, the Christians
having a name to live, while they are dead, think that God will screen
them on that ground.
See the hundreds and thousands of us that are thrown into the seas by
Christians, and murdered by them in other ways. They cram us into
their vessel holds in chains and in hand-cuffs--men, women and
children, all together!! O! save us, we pray thee, thou God of heaven
and of earth, from the devouring hands of the white Christians!!!!!!
Oh! thou Alpha and Omega!
The beginning and the end,
Enthron'd thou art, in Heaven above,
Surrounded by angels there:
From whence thou seest the miseries
To which we are subject;
The whites have murder'd us, O God!
And kept us ignorant of thee.
Not satisfied with this, my Lord!
They throw us in the seas:
Be pleas'd, we pray, for Jesus' sake,
To save us from their grasp.
We believe that, for thy glory's sake,
Thou wilt deliver us;
But that thou may'st effect these things,
Thy glory must be sought.
* * * * *
In conclusion, I ask the candid and unprejudiced of the whole world,
to search the pages of historians diligently, and see if the
Antediluvians--the Sodomites--the Egyptians--the Babylonians--the
Ninevites--the Carthagenians--the Persians--the Macedonians--the
Greeks--the Romans--the Mahometans--the Jews--or devils, ever treated
a set of human beings, as the white Christians of America do us, the
blacks, or Africans.--I also ask the attention of the world of mankind
to the declaration of these very American people, of the United
States.
_A Declaration made July 4, 1776._
It says,[29]
"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the
laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation. We hold these truths to be self evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute a new government laying its
foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in
such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object,
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it
is their right, it is their duty to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future
security."
See your declaration, Americans!! Do you understand your own language?
Hear your language, proclaimed to the world, July 4, 1776--
[Hand->] "We hold these truths to be self evident--that
_ALL_ MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! _that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!!_"
Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of
Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel
and unmerciful fathers on ourselves on our fathers and on us, men who
have never given your fathers or you the least provocation!!!
Hear your language further!
[Hand->] "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their _right_,
it is their _duty_, to throw off such government, and to
provide new guards for their future security."
Now, Americans! I ask you candidly, was your sufferings under Great
Britain one hundredth part as cruel and tyrannical as you have
rendered ours under you? Some of you, no doubt, believe that we will
never throw off your murderous government, and "provide new guards for
our future security." If Satan has made you believe it, will he not
deceive you?[30] Do the whites say, I being a black man, ought to be
humble, which I readily admit? I ask them, ought they not to be as
humble as I? or do they think they can measure arms with Jehovah? Will
not the Lord yet humble them? or will not these very coloured people,
whom they now treat worse than brutes, yet under God, humble them low
down enough? Some of the whites are ignorant enough to tell us, that
we ought to be submissive to them, that they may keep their feet on
our throats. And if we do not submit to be beaten to death by them, we
are bad creatures and of course must be damned, &c. If any man wishes
to hear this doctrine openly preached to us by the American preachers,
let him go into the Southern and Western sections of this country--I
do not speak from hearsay--what I have written, is what I have seen
and heard myself. No man may think that my book is made up of
conjecture--I have travelled and observed nearly the whole of those
things myself, and what little I did not get by my own observation, I
received from those among the whites and blacks, in whom the greatest
confidence may be placed.
The Americans may be as vigilant as they please, but they cannot be
vigilant enough for the Lord, neither can they hide themselves, where
he will not find and bring them out.
* * * * *
1 Thy presence why withdraw'st thou, Lord?
Why hid'st thou now thy face,
When dismal times of deep distress
Call for thy wonted grace?
2 The wicked, swell'd with lawless pride,
Have made the poor their prey;
O let them fall by those designs
Which they for others lay.
3 For straight they triumph, if success
Their thriving crimes attend;
And sordid wretches, whom God hates,
Perversely they commend.
4 To own a pow'r above themselves
Their haughty pride disdains;
And, therefore, in their stubborn mind
No thought of God remains.
5 Oppressive methods they pursue,
And all their foes they slight;
Because thy judgements, unobserved,
Are far above their sight.
6 They fondly think their prosp'rous state
Shall unmolested be;
They think their vain designs shall thrive,
From all misfortune free.
7 Vain and deceitful is their speech,
With curses fill'd, and lies;
By which the mischief of their heart
They study to disguise.
8 Near public roads they lie conceal'd,
And all their art employ,
The innocent and poor at once
To rifle and destroy.
9 Not lions crouching in their dens,
Surprise their heedless prey
With greater cunning, or express
More savage rage than they.
10 Sometimes they act the harmless man,
And modest looks they wear;
That so, deceiv'd, the poor may less
Their sudden onset fear
PART II.
11 For God, they think, no notice takes
Of their unrighteous deeds;
He never minds the suff'ring poor,
Nor their oppression heeds.
12 But thou, O Lord, at length arise,
Stretch forth thy mighty arm,
And by the greatness of thy pow'r,
Defend the poor from harm.
13 No longer let the wicked vaunt,
And, proudly boasting, say,
"Tush, God regards not what we do;
He never will repay."--_Common Prayer Book._
* * * * *
1 Shall I for fear of feeble man,
The Spirit's coarse in me restrain?
Or, undismay'd in deed and word.
Be a true witness of my Lord.
2 Aw'd by mortal's frown shall I
Conceal the word of God Most High!
How then before thee shall I dare
To stand, or how thine anger bear?
3 Shall I, to sooth th' unholy throng,
Soften the troth, or smooth my tongue,
To gain earth's gilded toys, or flee
The cross endur'd, my Lord, by thee?
4 What then is he whose scorn I dread?
Whose wrath or hate makes me afraid
A man! an heir of death! a slave
To sin! a bubble on the wave!
5 Yea, let men rage: since thou wilt spread
Thy shadowing wings around my head:
Since in all pain thy tender love
Will still my sure refreshment prove.
_Wesley's Collection._
FOOTNOTES:
[17] See Dr. Torrey's Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in the United
States, page 85-86.
[18] Among the English, our real friends and benefactors.
[19] In the first edition of this work, it should read 1816, as above,
and not 1826, as it there appears.
[20] "Niger" is a word derived from the Latin, which was used by the
old Romans to designate inanimate beings which were black, such as
soot, pot, wood, house, &c. Also, of animals which they considered
inferior to the human species, as a black horse, cow, hog, bird, dog,
&c. The white Americans have applied this term to Africans, by way of
reproach for our color, to aggravate and heighten our miseries,
because they have their feet on our throats, and we cannot help
ourselves.
[21] See Freedom's Journal for Nov. 2d, 1827--vol. 1, No. 34.
[22] I mean those whose labors for the good, or rather destruction of
Jerusalem, and the Jews. Ceased before our Lord entered the Temple,
and over turned the tables of the Money Changers.
[23] How many millions souls of the human family have the blacks, beat
nearly to death, to keep them from learning to read the Word of God
and from writing. And telling lies about them, by holding them up to
the world as a tribe of TALKING APES, void of _intellect!!! incapable_
of LEARNING, &c.
[24] And still hold us up with indignity as being incapable of
acquiring knowledge!!! See the inconsistency of the assertions of
those wretches--they beat us inhumanly, sometimes almost to death, for
attempting to inform ourselves, by reading the _Word_ of our Maker,
and at the same time tell us, that we are beings _void of
intellect!!!!!_ How admirably their practices agree with their
professions in this case. Let me cry shame upon you Americans, for
such outrages upon human nature!!! If it were possible for the whites
always to keep us ignorant and miserable, and make us work to enrich
them and their children, and insult our feelings by representing us as
_talking Apes_, what would they do? But glory honour and praise to
Heaven's King, that the sons and daughters of Africa, will, in spite
of all the opposition of their enemies, stand forth in all the dignity
and glory that is granted by the Lord to his creature man.
[25] Those who are ignorant enough to go to Africa, the coloured
people ought to be glad to have them go, for if they are ignorant
enough to let the whites _fool_ them off to Africa, they would be no
small injury to us if they reside in this country.
[26] See St. Mathew's Gospel, chap, xviii. v. 6.
[27] You are not astonished at my saying we hate you, for if we are
men, we cannot but hate you, while you are treating us like dogs.
[28] Some of my brethren, who are sensible, do not take an interest in
enlightening the minds of our more ignorant brethren respecting this
_Book_, and in reading it to them, just as though they will not have
either to rise or fall by what is written in this book. Do they
believe that I would be so foolish as to put out a book of this kind,
without strict--ah! very strict commandments of the Lord!--Surely the
blacks and whites must think that I am ignorant enough. Do they think
that I would have the audacious wickedness to take the name of my God
in vain?
Notice, I said in the concluding clause of Article 3--I call God, I
call Angels, I call men to witness, that the destruction of the
Americans is at hand, and will be speedily consumated unless they
repent. Now I wonder if the world think that I would take the name of
God in this way in vain? What do they think I take God to be? Do they
suppose that I would trifle with that God who will not have his holy
name taken in vain?--He will show you and the world, in due time,
whether this book is for his glory, or written by me through envy to
the whites, as some have represented.
[29] See the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
[30] The Lord has not taught the Americans that we will not some day
or other throw off their chains and hand-cuffs, from our hands and
feet, and their devilish lashes (which some of them shall have enough
of yet) from off our backs.
AN ADDRESS
TO THE SLAVES OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
(REJECTED BY THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1843.)
BY HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET.
PREFACE.
The following Address was first read at the National Convention held
at Buffalo, N.Y., in 1843. Since that time it has been slightly
modified, retaining, however, all of its original doctrine. The
document elicited more discussion than any other paper that was ever
brought before that, or any other deliberative body of colored
persons, and their friends. Gentlemen who opposed the Address, based
their objections on these grounds. 1. That the document was war-like,
and encouraged insurrection; and 2. That if the Convention should
adopt it, that those delegates who lived near the borders of the slave
states, would not dare to return to their homes. The Address was
rejected by a small majority; and now in compliance with the earnest
request of many who heard it, and in conformity to the wishes of
numerous friends who are anxious to see it, the author now gives it to
the public, praying God that this little book may be borne on the four
winds of heaven, until the principles it contains shall be understood
and adopted by every slave in the Union.
H.H.G.
Troy, N.Y., April 15, 1848.
ADDRESS TO THE SLAVES OF THE U.S.
BRETHREN AND FELLOW CITIZENS:
Your brethren of the north, east, and west have been accustomed to
meet together in National Conventions, to sympathize with each other,
and to weep over your unhappy condition. In these meetings we have
addressed all classes of the free, but we have never until this time,
sent a word of consolation and advice to you. We have been contented
in sitting still and mourning over your sorrows, earnestly hoping that
before this day, your sacred liberties would have been restored. But,
we have hoped in vain. Years have rolled on, and tens of thousands
have been borne on streams of blood, and tears, to the shores of
eternity. While you have been oppressed, we have also been partakers
with you; nor can we be free while you are enslaved. We therefore
write to you as being bound with you.
Many of you are bound to us, not only by the ties of a common
humanity, but we are connected by the more tender relations of
parents, wives, husbands, children, brothers, and sisters, and
friends. As such we most affectionately address you.
Slavery has fixed a deep gulf between you and us, and while it shuts
out from you the relief and consolation which your friends would
willingly render, it afflicts and persecutes you with a fierceness
which we might not expect to see in the fiends of hell. But still the
Almighty Father of Mercies has left to us a glimmering ray of hope,
which shines out like a lone star in a cloudy sky. Mankind are
becoming wiser, and better--the oppressor's power is fading, and you,
every day, are becoming better informed, and more numerous. Your
grievances, brethren, are many. We shall not attempt, in this short
address, to present to the world, all the dark catalogue of this
nation's sins, which have been committed upon an innocent people. Nor
is it indeed, necessary, for you feel them from day to day, and all
the civilized world look upon them with amazement.
Two hundred and twenty-seven years ago, the first of our injured race
were brought to the shores of America. They came not with glad spirits
to select their homes, in the New World. They came not with their own
consent, to find an unmolested enjoyment of the blessings of this
fruitful soil. The first dealings which they had with those calling
themselves Christians, exhibited to them the worst features of corrupt
and sordid hearts; and convinced them that no cruelty is too great, no
villainy, and no robbery too abhorrent for even enlightened men to
perform, when influenced by avarice, and lust. Neither did they come
flying upon the wings of Liberty, to a land of freedom. But, they came
with broken hearts, from their beloved native land, and were doomed to
unrequited toil, and deep degradation. Nor did the evil of their
bondage end at their emancipation by death. Succeeding generations
inherited their chains, and millions have come from eternity into
time, and have returned again to the world of spirits, cursed, and
ruined by American Slavery.
The propagators of the system, or their immediate ancestors very soon
discovered its growing evil, and its tremendous wickedness, and secret
promises were made to destroy it. The gross inconsistency of a people
holding slaves, who had themselves "ferried o'er the wave," for
freedom's sake, was too apparent to be entirely overlooked. The voice
of Freedom cried, "emancipate your Slaves." Humanity supplicated with
tears, for the deliverance of the children of Africa. Wisdom urged her
solemn plea. The bleeding captive plead his innocence, and pointed to
Christianity who stood weeping at the cross. Jehovah frowned upon the
nefarious institution, and thunderbolts, red with vengeance, struggled
to leap forth to blast the guilty wretches who maintained it. But all
was vain. Slavery had stretched its dark wings of death over the land,
the Church stood silently by--the priests prophesied falsely, and the
people loved to have it so. Its throne is established, and now it
reigns triumphantly.
Nearly three millions of your fellow citizens, are prohibited by law,
and public opinion, (which in this country is stronger than law), from
reading the Book of Life. Your intellect has been destroyed as much as
possible, and every ray of light they have attempted to shut out from
your minds. The oppressors themselves have become involved in the
ruin. They have become weak, sensual, and rapacious. They have cursed
you--they have cursed themselves--they have cursed the earth which
they have trod. In the language of a Southern statesman, we can truly
say, "even the wolf, driven back long since by the approach of man,
now returns after the lapse of a hundred years, and howls amid the
desolations of slavery."
The colonists threw the blame upon England. They said that the mother
country entailed the evil upon them, and that they would rid
themselves of it if they could. The world thought they were sincere,
and the philanthropic pitied them. But time soon tested their
sincerity. In a few years, the colonists grew strong and severed
themselves from the British Government. Their Independence was
declared, and they took their station among the sovereign powers of
the earth. The declaration was a glorious document. Sages admired it,
and the patriotic of every nation reverenced the Godlike sentiments
which it contained. When the power of Government returned to their
hands, did they emancipate the slaves? No; they rather added new links
to our chains. Were they ignorant of the principles of Liberty?
Certainly they were not. The sentiments of their revolutionary orators
fell in burning eloquence upon their hearts, and with one voice they
cried, LIBERTY OR DEATH. O, what a sentence was that! It ran from soul
to soul like electric fire, and nerved the arm of thousands to fight
in the holy cause of Freedom. Among the diversity of opinions that are
entertained in regard to physical resistance, there are but a few
found to gainsay that stern declaration. We are among those who do
not.
SLAVERY! How much misery is comprehended in that single word. What
mind is there that does not shrink from its direful effects? Unless
the image of God is obliterated from the soul, all men cherish the
love of Liberty. The nice discerning political economist does not
regard the sacred right, more than the untutored African who roams in
the wilds of Congo. Nor has the one more right to the full enjoyment
of his freedom than the other. In every man's mind the good seeds of
liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to
make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest
crime against God and man. Brethren, your oppressors aim to do this.
They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible. When they
have blinded the eyes of your mind--when they have embittered the
sweet waters of life--when they have shut out the light which shines
from the word of God--then, and not till then has American slavery
done its perfect work.
TO SUCH DEGRADATION IT IS SINFUL IN THE EXTREME FOR YOU TO MAKE
VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION. The divine commandments, you are in duty
bound to reverence, and obey. If you do not obey them you will surely
meet with the displeasure of the Almighty. He requires you to love him
supremely, and your neighbor as yourself--to keep the Sabbath day
holy--to search the Scriptures--and bring up your children with
respect for his laws, and to worship no other God but him. But slavery
sets all these at naught and hurls defiance in the face of Jehovah.
The forlorn condition in which you are placed does not destroy your
moral obligation to God. You are not certain of Heaven, because you
suffer yourselves to remain in a state of slavery, where you cannot
obey the commandments of the Sovereign of the universe. If the
ignorance of slavery is a passport to heaven, then it is a blessing,
and no curse, and you should rather desire its perpetuity than its
abolition. God will not receive slavery, nor ignorance, nor any other
state of mind, for love, and obedience to him. Your condition does not
absolve you from your moral obligation. The diabolical injustice by
which your liberties are cloven down, NEITHER GOD, NOR ANGELS, OR
JUST MEN, COMMAND YOU TO SUFFER FOR A SINGLE MOMENT. THEREFORE IT IS
YOUR SOLEMN AND IMPERATIVE DUTY TO USE EVERY MEANS, BOTH MORAL,
INTELLECTUAL, AND PHYSICAL, THAT PROMISE SUCCESS. If a band of
heathen men should attempt to enslave a race of Christians, and to
place their children under the influence of some false religion,
surely, heaven would frown upon the men who would not resist such
aggression, even to death. If, on the other hand, a band of Christians
should attempt to enslave a race of heathen men and to entail slavery
upon them, and to keep them in heathenism in the midst of
Christianity, the God of heaven would smile upon every effort which
the injured might make to disenthral themselves.